MADISON, MO -- Flagship Technologies, Inc. releases ManagePLUS™,
a Microsoft Windows™-compatible computer program that adds new
accounting features to the popular QuickBooks and Quicken programs.
Most important among the added features are enhanced handling of
physical quantities, and reports showing per-unit income and cost
for any account or enterprise class. These features let users gather
income and cost information (including physical quantities) on a per-management-unit
basis. For instance, a farmer can get reports showing average yield
per acre for each farm, field, or acre of soybeans; pounds of a
particular corn herbicide used per acre; total herbicide costs per
acre for any crop; pounds of mineral supplement fed per beef cow;
tractor repair costs per acre or per hour; and so on.
ManagePLUS works by adding new menu selections to the QuickBooks
or Quicken menus, so it operates seamlessly within the QuickBooks or
Quicken program environment. Users invoke ManagePLUS's added
features just like any other part of their accounting program--and
without leaving the accounting program or manually switching to
another program.
ManangePLUS accomplishes this without altering any part
of the host program or its files in any way.
But QuickBooks Already Handles Quantities, Doesn't It?
According to Mark Wilsdorf, president of Flagship Technologies,
QuickBooks does an adequate job of handling quantities for expense
transactions, but not for income: "QuickBooks won't let users
enter quantity information in the Deposit window. And though
quantities can be recorded by writing an Invoice for every income
transaction, the Invoice window doesn't permit associating income
with a particular 'class' [QuickBooks enterprise account]. Using
QuickBooks' classes is an absolute must for tracking
enterprise costs and incomes in a set of accounting records."
ManagePLUS circumvents QuickBooks' shortcomings by letting users
enter quantities in either QuickBooks Quantity fields or in the Memo
field of any transaction. "Now users can record quantity
information wherever they want, even in the Deposits window.",
said Wilsdorf.
Another QuickBooks limitation that its Inventory reports cannot
be made to provide much management information. According to Mark
Wilsdorf, "ManagePLUS overcomes this problem too, with reports
that give users per-management-unit information. In other
words, we don't just print out the quantity information users have
entered; we show how quantities and dollar relate to management
units--to an acre of crop, a head or hundredweight of livestock
production, and so on."
Management Accounting a` la ManagePLUS
Management accounting (sometimes called cost or enterprise
accounting) means keeping records which help to identify incomes
and/or costs within specific parts of a business. These parts of the
business are often referred to as enterprises or profit
centers--activities intended to generate a profit--and cost
centers--activities which mostly service the needs of profit
centers; such as a combine which mostly exists to provide harvesting
services to crop enterprises.
ManagePLUS's quantity-tracking capabilities can be used to keep
as much or as little information as desired--all the way from
tracking income and costs for a single enterprise or machine, to
management accounting for all of the business's profit centers and
cost centers.
For instance, a farmer who only wants information on the per-acre
costs of operating his combine can choose to just enter quantity
information for transactions related to the combine. ManagePLUS will
then provide reports showing per-acre quantities (i.e., gallons of
fuel) and costs for each category in the chart of accounts (fuel,
repairs, insurance, etc.).
Here's an example of the information ManagePLUS can provide. The
report fragment below shows the Income section of ManagePLUS' Profit
& Loss Statement--an enhanced version of the QuickBooks
Profit & Loss, providing detailed information about various
enterprises. (In this example Corn, Soybeans, Alfalfa Hay, Grass
Hay, and Combine are all QuickBooks "classes" or
enterprises.)
Note: most of the information in this report was gleaned
directly from transaction entries. No additional entries outside of
QuickBooks were required except for the crop acreages and hours of
Combine operation, which were entered into ManagePLUS.
=========================================================================================================================
% of Quantity $ per No. of
QUANTITY $/UNIT TOTAL $ Account per Production Production Production
$ Total Unit Unit Units
=========================================================================================================================
Ordinary Income
Income
Sales
Grain
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Corn 40,000 bu. $3.00 $120,000.00 48% of Grain 130.00 bu./acre = $389.61/acre on 308 acres
Soybeans 20,000 bu. $5.95 $119,000.00 48% of Grain 44.00 bu./acre = $262.11/acre on 454 acres
TOTAL Grains 70,000 $239,000.00 96% of Grain
UNASSIGNED 7,500 11,375.00 5% of Grain
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Grain 77,500 $250,375.00 84% of Sales
Hay & Pasture
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfalfa Hay 310 ton $106.00 $32,860.00 67% of Hay 3.10 ton/acre = $328.60/acre on 100 acres
Grass Hay 234 ton $68.00 $15,912.00 33% of Hay 2.60 ton/acre = $176.80/acre on 90 acres
TOTAL Hay 544 $48,772.00
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Hay & Pasture 544 $48,772.00 15% of Sales
Custom Work Income
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Combine 200 acre $25.00 $5,000.00 100% of Combine 0.33 acre/hour = $8.33/hour on 600 hours
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Custom Work 200 $5,000.00 2% of Sales
==================================================================
Corn 40,000 bu. $3.00 $120,000.00 40% of Sales
Soybeans 20,000 bu. $5.95 $119,000.00 39% of Sales
TOTAL Grains 70,000 $239,000.00 79% of Sales
Alfalfa 310 ton $106.00 $32,860.00 11% of Sales
Grass & Mixed 234 ton $68.00 $15,912.00 5% of Sales
TOTAL Hay 544 $48,772.00 15% of Sales
----------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL Crops 70,544 $287,772.00 95% of Sales
Combine 200 acre $25.00 $5,000.00 1% of Sales
UNASSIGNED 7,500 11,375.00 4% of Sales
==================================================================
Total Sales 78,244 $304,147.00 98% of Income
.
.
.
And here is a fragment from the Expense section of the
ManagePLUS Profit & Loss Statement.
=========================================================================================================================
% of Quantity $ per No. of
QUANTITY $/UNIT TOTAL $ Account per Production Production Production
$ Total Unit Unit Units
=========================================================================================================================
Expense
Chemicals
Atrazine90DF
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Corn 740 lbs $3.10 $2,294.00 100% of Atrazine 2.40 lbs/acre = $7.45/acre on 308 acres
TOTAL Grains 740 $2,294.00 100% of Atrazine
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Atrazine90 740 $2,294.00 18% of Chemicals
Dual II
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Corn 71 gal $58.24 $4,135.04 39% of Dual II 0.23 gal/acre = $13.43/acre on 308 acres
Soybeans 109 gal $59.03 $6,434.27 61% of Dual II 0.24 gal/acre = $14.17/acre on 454 acres
TOTAL Grains 180 $10,569.31 100% of Dual II
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Dual II 180 $12,863.31 82% of Chemicals
.
.
.
Click here
for a graphical view of part of our ManagePLUS brochure, which
illustrates report features added by ManagePLUS.
Who Will Use ManagePLUS?
Farming operations, orchards, nurseries, contractors, and other
businesses will use ManagePLUS...any business where per-management-unit
information is useful in management decisions and planning.
Availability and Pricing
ManagePLUS for QuickBooks is shipping now. The Quicken version
will be available by the end of 1997. For current product prices and
ordering information see Flagship's online
order form.
For more information about ManagePLUS, visit the ManagePLUS
Product Information page or contact Flagship Technologies by any
of the means listed at the end of this article.
Flagship Technologies, Inc., is located at Madison, Missouri. The
company's primary focus is on developing and marketing agricultural
software products, including the ManagePLUS
for QuickBooks™ and ManagePLUS
for Quicken™ farm accounting add-ons for QuickBooks and
Quicken, as well as other software products and training materials.
The company can be contacted by these means:
Prices and specifications are subject to
change without notice. ManagePLUS is a trademark of Flagship
Technologies, Inc. QuickBooks and Quicken are registered trademarks
of Intuit.
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